A Fistful of Bananas
by Leda74
Summary: A grand promise on the Doctor's part leads he and Rose to a library, where things take a turn for the strange and familiar. Discworld crossover.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm bored," said Rose, turning over on her sun lounger and dropping the book she'd been reading.

The Doctor looked up from the sandcastle he'd been sculpting into the shape of the Palace of Versailles, with a little assistance from the sonic screwdriver. Rose studied this creation with as much equanimity as she could; she was well aware of the Doctor's continuing preoccupation with everything connected with 18th century France.

Perhaps sensing her mood, he switched off the screwdriver and focused on her.

"Bored?" he asked. "With the whole of time and space at your disposal? Humans!" he said dismissively, and then picked up her discarded book, turning it over. "Mind you," he went on, "I don't think your choice of reading matter is helping much."

They shared a pained look at the cover art, which showed a swooning, beribboned female locked in the arms of a muscular man with orange skin.

"I can't help it," said Rose, snorting. "That was the best of the lot in that beach shop."

"There was _worse_ than this?" said the Doctor, his voice festooned with horror. Rose nodded.

"You try going up to the counter with a copy of 'Lady Maria's Bloomers' in your hand and see how far _you_ get," she said. The Doctor, who had been holding the book between finger and thumb in any case, dropped it back into the sand.

"Okay," he said, brightly. "We'll go and get you another book. You name it, and I'll find it for you. Can't say fairer than that," he added, with his most endearing grin.

Rose wrinkled her nose in thought, and found that thought was one thing that was suddenly in extremely short supply. _Any book?_ She felt as if she'd been asked to 'say something' and, with the whole of the English language at her disposal, had run dry of words. She squirmed over on the lounger to buy herself some time; the Doctor's encouraging grin hadn't had time to fade.

"Right," she said. "There's a kids' book I've wanted to read again for _years_, but the problem is, I can't remember what it's called. All I know is that it was about a little kid who meets up with some monsters in the forest. Um," she added, winding down.

The Doctor frowned; a shade too intensely, thought Rose, feeling ever so faintly mocked. He tapped the screwdriver against his chin, thoughtfully.

"I can't say it rings a bell with _me_," he said, eventually, "but I know someone who might have an idea. Come on," he said, bouncing to his feet and holding out a hand to help her up.

"Can I ask where we're going?" said Rose as she followed the Doctor's long strides back to the TARDIS, which they'd parked just above the high tide line.

"We're going to see an old friend of mine," he told her, without looking back. Then he pulled up sharp and fished in his pocket for the key. "Actually," he added, "'friend' is probably stretching it, but I think I can bribe him. Wait there."

The Doctor dashed through the console room as soon as he was inside, leaving Rose to close the door behind her. She'd barely thought to ask what the hell he thought he was playing at when he returned, clutching a bunch of –

"Bananas?" asked Rose, and then checked herself. "Wait a minute. If you think I'm going back to Versailles..." she began, but the Doctor waved the fruit at her and set it down on the console.

"Not Versailles," he said, and arched an eyebrow at her. "_Definitely_ not Versailles. Hang on," he added, pulling out his glasses and perching them on his nose, "this could get a bit bumpy."

Rose grabbed for a stanchion just in time; the TARDIS took a nauseating lurch and almost threw her to the floor. She watched in bewilderment as the Doctor secured both himself and his bananas, and then she felt everything in her stomach rise up to meet her as the TARDIS dropped as if it were an elevator with a broken cable.

"Sorry," called the Doctor across the floor, "I did say it was going to be a bit bumpy, didn't I?"

"..." said Rose, only a lack of air coming between her and a fine stream of invective. She hauled in another breath, this time meaning to finish the job, and then the TARDIS thumped to a halt.

The sudden lack of motion, after that brief but powerful rollercoaster ride, was disorienting. Rose let go of the stanchion only by peeling her own fingers back one at a time. Her knuckles were white-shading-to-blue.

"We're here," said the Doctor, strolling over to her, looking hatefully calm and unflustered. _Oh_, thought Rose, _and cute_, but she wasn't about to let him off so lightly.

"Where's 'here'?" she asked, standing upright again on the fourth attempt.

"You'll see," he told her, smiling sidelong.

He took her arm and opened the door. Rose stepped out into a library. It had to be a library, she told herself; there were books. Lots of books. Lots and lots – she strained her eyes into the gloom – and lots and lots of books.

The library, wherever it was, was dark, although it was several degrees from quiet. Rose turned, apprehensive, as she heard the clink and skitter of a chain somewhere in the distance.

She looked up to find the source of what little light there was, and laid eyes on a gorgeous glass dome, more than fifty feet above them. It was supported by a network of narrow steel girders, and there were eight carved niches beneath it, each sheltering a statue of a woman. One of them was holding a kettle full of parsnips.

"That's Bissonomy," said the Doctor, so close behind her as to make her yelp. "Best not to ask about the parsnips. It's a bit of a sore point, apparently."

Rose gathered herself, slowly and deliberately.

"I'm not _going_ to ask about the sodding _parsnips_," she whispered, in deference to the fact that however peculiar it was, it _was_ still a library. "I'm asking you where we are!"

"This," said the Doctor, stepping around her and peering between shelves, "is the Library of Unseen University." He turned around and looked down at her, clearly disapproved of the expression on her face, and stood back. "Good grief, don't tell me you've never heard of Terry Pratchett?"

Rose's reply had to be postponed, for it was at that point that a screaming pile of red fur bore the Doctor to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

"I'm terribly sorry," said the Doctor's muffled voice, from somewhere in the tangle of arms and legs. "Have I come at a bad time?"

Rose had slammed her back against the TARDIS and was panting heavily, staring at the beast now unfolding itself from the floor. It showed her a mouthful of jagged yellow teeth; she, in response, tried to burrow through the door with her shoulder blades.

The Doctor untangled himself cautiously and staggered to his feet, straightening his clothing as best he could. His glasses were at a lunatic angle, and in spite of everything, Rose struggled not to laugh.

"Sorry," he said, "Introductions. Rose, this is the Librarian. Librarian, Rose." He stopped, as if he'd explained everything.

"Librarian?" said Rose, turning on him. "But that's a mon-"

The Doctor moved with shrew-like speed and clamped a firm hand over her mouth.

"You'll have to excuse her," he told the glowering ape. "She's new. Okay," he went on, gingerly removing his hand from Rose's mouth. "He's an orangutan," he hissed in her ear. "Don't say the 'M' word. Never say the 'M' word. Under no circumstances are you to say the 'M' word. Got it? Oh, and don't worry about the teeth. It means he likes you."

Rose, who had been worrying immensely about the teeth, tried to relax.

"Oook," said the Librarian, shuffling closer and holding out a hand. Rose looked at the black leather paw as if it were radioactive.

"Shake hands," said the Doctor quietly, out of the side of a very broad smile indeed. She did so.

"_Anyway_," said the Doctor, almost as if he weren't standing in the middle of a completely imaginary library and talking to an orangutan, "We'd like your assistance in finding a book, sir." He reached inside his jacket and produced the bunch of bananas, which didn't seem to have suffered unduly from the tussle on the floor.

"Oook!" said the Librarian. "_Oook!_" and with that, he wrenched open the door of the TARDIS and knuckled up the ramp. Rose and the Doctor stared at each other. The Librarian took advantage of the pause to return, grab the bananas from the Doctor's unresisting hand and disappear back inside.

"Oh dear," said the Doctor, at length, through a smile that now looked somewhat strained.

"What?" said Rose, hopelessly befuddled.

"It seems we _have_ come at a bad time."

* * *

"Come down!"

"Oook!"

"_Please_ come down?" tried the Doctor.

The Librarian, by way of response, merely scratched his bottom defiantly. The Doctor stuck his hands on his hips and loosed a sharp sigh.

"I don't want to interrupt," said Rose, very carefully, "but would you mind telling me how we can be in a fictional place?"

The Doctor swung around as if noticing her for the first time, then softened his expression slightly.

"It's like this," he said. "The Trousers of Time." There was a faint but reproachful "oook" from above his head, and he stopped and craned his neck up. "Okay, okay!" he shouted, then turned back to Rose.

"Like he said," he continued. "The Trousers of Time dictate that if anything is possible, if anything can be imagined, then it must exist _somewhere_. Infinite possibilities in an infinite multiverse. With me so far?"

Rose took a step back and rubbed at her forehead.

"Er...no?" she said, desperately.

"Well, tough," he grinned, "'cause I'm doing the best I can. Anyway, what I did was nip through L-Space..." There was another "oook" from on high, and this time the Doctor brandished his index finger at the idly swinging ape.

"So help me, I'm going to climb up there and shove those bananas right up – yes, hello?" This was to Rose, who'd tapped him on the shoulder.

"Can you focus for a minute?" she said, annoyed. "Trousers of Time? L-Space?"

"You really are going to have to read the books one day, you know," said the Doctor distractedly, and then turned back to the ceiling. "Look," he said, exasperated. "Just come down and we'll talk about it. I promise I won't desecrate your bananas."

"How can you understand what he's saying?" said Rose, now staring up at the Librarian herself. She watched him brachiate across the ceiling, fruit grasped in one prehensile foot. "And how come the TARDIS isn't translating it?"

"Well," the Doctor scratched his chin, "I've never been too sure on either of those points, to be honest. After a while you just get the hang of it."

"But all he says is 'oook'," she pointed out; quite reasonably, she thought.

"Yeah, but..." the Doctor waved one vague hand in the air, trying to indicate some huge and fundamental truth that he couldn't quite put into words, "...they're all different. Somehow," he finished, lamely.

The Librarian was descending the far wall. Being cautious, however, he was electing to keep his distance for now. He pulled a banana from the bunch and sucked it out of its skin in one economical movement, then eyed the pair of them warily.

"What did you mean when you said we've come at a bad time?" said Rose, without taking her eyes off the ape. The Librarian mistook her gaze, and hugged the bananas protectively.

"Well, I was getting to that," said the Doctor, running a nervous finger around his collar. "You see, when you travel transdimensionally, you get one of two choices. You can either land on one precise spot and take a chance on _when_ you'll end up...or you can pick a precise time and leave the _where_ up to chance. It's all very quantum," he added, morosely.

"I think I'm getting the picture," nodded Rose, "even thought I really, _really_ don't want to."

"Oook," said the Librarian, who'd meanwhile knuckled closer and was now attempting to groom her arm. She didn't flinch away, and then wondered why on earth not.

Meanwhile, the Doctor had reached beneath the nearest console and was rummaging feverishly beneath it for something. He pulled out a clearly much-read paperback and handed it to her.

"Page one hundred and fifty six," he said, gnomically. Rose glanced at the title – _Sourcery_ – and then shuffled the yellowing pages until she found the one she was looking for, while the Librarian tried unsuccessfully to read over her shoulder. Eventually, she flicked her eyes down to the bottom of the last paragraph.

"Oh," she said, numbly. "I see."


	3. Chapter 3

"They're going to burn the Library?" asked Rose, incredulous. The Doctor nodded sombrely and retrieved the book.

"We have to _do_ something," she said.

"Can't," said the Doctor, "for several reasons. One, this place may be fictional, but it still has a history, and that would constitute messing about with it. Two, I like that book the way it is, thank you very much, and three," he inhaled slowly before continuing, "we don't need to. He'll be all right, and so will the books."

He paused, blinked, and looked around the console room very slowly.

"Speaking of," he said, at length, "where's the Librarian?" Rose looked down at an orangutan-shaped hole in spacetime.

"He was just here," she said, and stared around her.

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver, flicked the switch with his thumb and pointed it at odd corners in turn, the light at its tip flickering fitfully all the while.

"What are you doing?" said Rose.

"Setting 1048-A. Ape Detector," the Doctor told her without turning around, and then aimed the screwdriver in yet another random direction.

"Oh, come _on_..." Rose planted her hands on her hips, but the Doctor chuckled triumphantly and jabbed his finger at a doorway.

"He went thattaway," he cried. "_Allons-y!_"

He loped up the ramp to the archway and stepped through, Rose trotting to keep up. She grabbed his elbow as he rounded a corner, attempting to slow him down.

"So, what's L-Space?" she persisted. The Doctor stopped sweeping the floor for simian trace residues and peered at her over the top of his glasses. He appeared to think for a second, and then waved the paperback at her.

"Books," he said, "whether magical or not, distort the fabric of the multiverse when they're gathered together in sufficient quantity. Have you ever walked into a library and thought to yourself that it was basically the same as any other library you'd ever seen?"

"I don't go to that many libraries," admitted Rose. The Doctor gave her a Look, then shrugged and strode off, continuing to scan the floor as he did so.

"Anyway," he continued, sounding only mildly preoccupied, "that's nothing to do with faulty perception, or council budget cuts for that matter. It's because all libraries _are_ the same place. And what this means is that I..."

He stopped.

"And what this..." He stopped again, and then pulled in a vast, creaking breath. "And what..._in the name of sanity has he done to my TARDIS?_"

Rose hesitated, brushed a hairy violet creeper out of her hair, and tried to sum up the scene that had met her eyes as she'd stepped through the doorway.

"Looks to me as if he's turned it into a jungle," she said.

* * *

Rose leapt up onto her toes, clutching the trunk of the tree for balance, and pulled down an orange. She sniffed gingerly at the skin before peeling it, but as far as she could tell from this analysis, it was a perfectly ordinary, standard issue orange.

She dug one thumbnail into the skin and started to peel it as the Doctor paced the floor unhappily, occasionally lifting his feet to avoid the source of his unhappiness.

"There's parrot poo all over my floor," he said, dejectedly.

As if on cue, a blue macaw erupted from the foliage, flapped heavily across the small clearing and crashed into the greenery on the other side, leaving behind nothing but one spiralling gold tail feather and a glutinous green smear on the Doctor's shoulder.

Rose dropped the orange and grabbed his wrist as he growled and aimed the screwdriver at the trees.

"Come on, don't blame the bird," she chided, and pulled out a wad of paper tissue, pressing it into his hand.

"Don't be silly," he said. "That parrot's miles away by now."

She left him wiping ineffectually at his suit and cursing the tribe of parrots unto the ninth generation, and picked her way off the one semi-beaten path through the seething jungle.

Rose recalled that the Doctor had once tried to explain the workings of the TARDIS. _It's psychic_, he'd said. At first she'd resented what felt like an intrusion into her brain, but as time passed and the TARDIS provided her with everything she wanted – plus a few things she hadn't even _known_ she'd wanted until she got them – she made peace with the situation.

It looked as if the TARDIS was adapting to the presence of the Librarian, too; although things were, somehow, subtly wrong. She would be the first to admit that she didn't know a great deal about jungles, but she was reasonably sure that oranges and coconuts didn't share the same habitat.

Rose's foot stopped as it landed on something soft. She hesitated, locked in a horrible dilemma of indecision, then eventually steeled her nerve and glanced down.

She'd stepped on a small toy tiger.

She bent and retrieved it, brushed a few dried leaves off its fur, and then squeezed its belly experimentally. It squeaked forlornly.

_That's because he's afraid of tigers_, she thought, and then wondered where that thought had come from.

Rose clutched the toy to her chest and pushed aside another drooping frond. Beyond, it seemed she'd found the limits of the jungle; the smooth, golden inner wall of the TARDIS gleamed at her.

There was a door in it, and it _definitely_ didn't belong. It seemed to be made of heavy, forbidding oak, punched through with dozens of black iron bolts. It was the archetype of every Terrible Vampire's Castle door. Rose knew, without touching it, that it would creak horribly when it was opened. She stepped forward and stretched out a hand. She pushed the door. It creaked horribly.

A sudden whirlwind sucked at her hair and clothes; the difference in size between this room and the one in which she stood had created a vast pressure differential. When she could draw breath again, Rose stuck her head through the door and looked up. And up. And _up_.

A parrot – it might even have been the same one that had so recently besmirched the Doctor – barrelled over her head, out of the jungle and into the beyond. She watched it ascend, screeching and echoing, until it dwindled and was lost to sight against the clouds streaking the sky.

"Oook oook?"

Rose glanced down as a warm, soft hand was slipped into hers, and then lifted her gaze into a hopeful smile as toothy as a dentist's dustbin. She returned the smile - weakly, and with sixty-four per cent fewer teeth - and then turned back over her shoulder.

"Doctor?" she called through the whispering trees, her voice quavering. "You'd better come and have a look at this..."


	4. Chapter 4

"Oook?"

Rose, who had been brought up to be polite, took the banana. She waited until the Librarian glanced away, and then slipped it into her pocket.

"Are you sure we're safe up here?" she said, for want of anything else.

"Oooqsh," the Librarian told her reassuringly, through a mouthful of fruit.

They were sitting on top of a bookshelf. It was perfectly comfortable provided she avoided looking down; although it had to be said that the view to either side was scarcely less intimidating.

The tops of the bookshelves gleamed beneath a light of indeterminate origin, and ran away into the distance until her eyes watered. She strongly suspected that there _was_ no real horizon to this place, and that her quailing imagination was constructing one out of self-defence.

"It's a very nice library," said Rose, trying for understatement in the face of titanic splendour, "but what about yours? Aren't you worried about it?"

"Oook oook," shrugged the Librarian, an ape perfectly constructed for such a gesture. Rose stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it about for a second, but eventually came to the conclusion that the Doctor had been right. She was beginning to understand the nuances of the ape's speech.

"Don't be like that," she said, reprovingly. "There's _plenty_ you can do. Besides, I know how the story ends. You save the books."

"Oook?"

"I don't know how," she admitted, "but you definitely do. You'll find a way."

Rose jumped as a hand thrust itself over the top of the bookcase, waved helplessly for a second and was eventually followed by a brown pin-striped arm. The arm was joined by another, and together they heralded the rise of a dishevelled and rather irritated face.

"Two," the Doctor panted, "and a half," he gasped, "thousand feet." He grimaced, and hauled himself onto the bookshelf between them. "You do realise it took me more than half an hour to climb up here?"

"Should've used the lift, shouldn't you?" said Rose, dismissively.

"What lift?" asked the Doctor, after a pause to regroup.

"There's one about two miles down the aisle," she told him, pointing. "Between 'J' and 'Squelch'."

"Isn't Scalporian a marvellous language?" said the Doctor, beaming. "They only have a seven letter alphabet...Bang, Aaargh, Thud, Squelch, Ding, Quack and Blort. You should hear their poetry," he added, nudging Rose.

"Anyway," he went on, rooting in his pocket, "I found a shelf of these on the way up. Thought you might be interested." He extended his closed fist and dropped something into her outstretched palm.

Rose recoiled instinctively as something warm shifted against her skin, but as the Doctor drew his hand away, she stopped twitching and stared in fascination.

There was a small animal crouching on her hand. About four inches in length, it looked like a hamster, if there were a hamster somewhere in the universe that was bald, glossy and azure blue. The resemblance ended at its neck; its head more closely resembled that of a toad. She extended one finger and ran it down the line of nodules on the creature's back, which caused it to shuffle and burp contentedly.

"What is it?" she asked, not removing her eyes from those of the animal. She swore it had winked at her.

"This," said the Doctor, extending a dramatic arm, "is a library. _That_," he said, nodding at the gently wobbling creature, "is a book."

Rose actually _felt_ her credulity snap.

"No it isn't," she retorted.

"Yes, it is," said the Doctor.

"No," she repeated, "it _isn't_." The animal burped again; without thinking, she ticked its chin lightly.

"Listen," insisted the Doctor, gently amused. "The Pellepatorians of..." he stopped, and sneezed hugely.

"Bless you," said Rose.

"Oook," said the Librarian, holding out a handkerchief.

"Thanks, but no," said the Doctor, waving away the proffered handkerchief even though it looked, admittedly, spotless. "That's the name of the Pellepatorian homeworld."

"Their planet," said Rose, scornfully, "is called 'Atchoo'?"

"Yeah. Well, it's spelled 'Waaiaatchjuuioo', but I much prefer the native pronunciation, don't you? Anyway." He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to get back on track.

"The Pellepatorians," he explained, "are shape-shifters. They can imitate any living thing they touch, simply by sampling its genetic code. In the early days of their evolution, it started as a defence mechanism, but these days it's also how they communicate."

He paused for thought, felt in his pocket again, then pulled out a second animal and held it out on his own palm. Rose looked closely; where she'd initially thought they were identical, she could see one slight difference. The original animal's eyes were black, whereas the new one's were a deep, sombre green.

"Second edition," said the Doctor, and stowed it away again. It cheeped in his pocket.

"So," said Rose, with the air of someone picking their way through a minefield with only half the map in their hand, "what do they eat?"

"Carbon dioxide," said the Doctor, and leaned across her shoulder. For a second, she felt the warmth of his mouth an inch from her neck, and shivered deliciously. Then he turned and faced the animal instead, breathing gently on it. It pulsed happily and opened its mouth and gills, inhaling the wash of warm air.

"They _breed_ these things as books, then?" asked Rose, when the beast in her palm had stopped vibrating.

"Yep," said the Doctor. "Just think how much information's contained in a strand of DNA. The Pellepatorians learned how to manipulate it with pinpoint accuracy. This is, as I said, a living book. They read them simply by touching them. Like so," he said, taking the creature and stroking its back thoughtfully.

"Not bad," he said eventually, wrinkling his nose and tilting his head, "but it's not going to win the Booker Prize, either. Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"I wonder if you'd mind going back to the jungle for a minute? The Librarian and I need to have a little chat, man to, er..."

"Oook," said the Librarian, pointing a warning fingernail up his nose.

"...ape!" said the Doctor. "I was going to say 'ape', all right?"

Rose sighed sarcastically and got to her feet, smoothing out the creases in her clothing with sharp, pointed strokes.

"Okay," she said, "I'll leave you to it. And here," she added, pulling out the banana and handing it to the Doctor. "You'll need this. Blimey, what a pair of m–"

"_Oook?_"

"Muppets," said Rose. "And you are. A right royal pair of muppets."

With that, she flounced away, heading back down the bookcase towards the lift. The Doctor watched her retreating back until he judged her out of earshot, then turned and flung a friendly arm around the Librarian's shoulders.

"All right," he said, deliberately. "What'll it take to get you out of my bloody TARDIS and back where you belong?"


	5. Chapter 5

Rose stood in the lee of a date palm and tried to consider umbrellas, in the faint hope that the TARDIS would be kind enough to materialise one for her.

It didn't.

She was almost certain that in the rainforest, the _real_ rainforest, the rain wasn't this cold and insidious; but then again, if all the TARDIS had had to rely on was the Librarian's own personal experience of rain, it was probably no surprise that it was such a miserable, dispiriting affair.

She'd found the toy tiger lying just outside the door, right where she'd dropped it, but the rain had got into its squeaker and when she squeezed it this time, all that emerged was a pathetic 'sqburbleblmph'.

"Sod this," she muttered to herself, and had just started to make her way back to the console room when she was overtaken, in rapid succession, by the Librarian and the Doctor, the latter trailing a Doppler-distorted cry of, "_Step lively!_"

She pulled up sharp, double-took, and then dropped the soggy toy into a bush. There seemed to be little else for it but to follow the Doctor, so she did.

When she reached the console room – which seemed to have acquired a number of tiger-skin rugs and potted ferns in their brief absence – she found the door flung back and the room entirely innocent of either Time Lord or orangutan. Swearing just beneath her breath, she wandered out into the shadows of the library.

No sooner had she stepped through the doors than someone thrust a glass jar into her hands. She clutched it reflexively, lifted it to eye level, regarded the small yellow reptile inside and frowned.

"Why am I holding a lizard in a jar?" she asked the world in general.

"Honestly," said the Doctor, looking her up and down. "You people and your questions. 'Where are we?' 'What's that big hairy monster?' 'Why am I holding a lizard in a jar?' You know, if humans just took things at face value once in a while, they'd be a lot more productive."

Rose couldn't think of a suitably caustic reply, so she handed him the jar and stalked back inside, promising herself that when she'd come up with an adequate retort, she'd be _right_ back to deliver it.

She turned back as a volley of barks and growls filled the room, and started to laugh as the Doctor staggered backwards up the ramp, still desperately gripping the jar, trying to fend off an infuriated greyish-brown terrier with the aid of one flailing foot.

"Help me?" he warbled, but Rose shook her head.

"Not likely," she giggled. "This is the best entertainment I've had in days!"

The cabaret was interrupted by the Librarian, who swung in through the door and seized the animal gently but firmly by the scruff of its neck. Unfortunately for the Doctor, the dog had by that time managed to sink its teeth into his trouser cuff; the ripping sound as it was pulled away was almost melodious.

Rose hung onto the nearest railing for support, no longer sure that her legs would do duty. She was laughing so hard that her stomach muscles were cramping, and she'd started to squeak and gasp. The Doctor glared firstly at the dog, then at his violated trousers, and finally at Rose.

"If we could pull ourselves together?" he said, with thinly overlaid patience. "You might want to duck. Okay, Librarian, in your own time?"

The ape nodded, turned to face the open door, stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. Rose stopped laughing at once and clapped her hands over her ears; the Librarian's whistle would have cracked sheet metal at five hundred yards.

For a few heartbeats, there was no further reaction. Then Rose's ears picked up a faint rustling. Faint, that was, but growing steadily. Her eyes widened in horror, and she had just enough time to hit the deck as a squadron of books slammed through the open door and screamed across the room.

"How are we doing?" called the Doctor's cheery voice, shouting to be heard above the thump and thunder of the swarming books. Rose risked raising her head from the floor and saw him tucked beneath a console, grinning inanely. As she watched, he fielded a small tome from mid-air and, opening it at random, started to read peacefully.

Rose scowled, said a very rude word indeed and then crawled across the floor to him, keeping as low as possible to avoid being brained. There were still scores of books streaming overhead; she had no idea how many had already passed by, or how many more there might be.

"What's going on?" she shrieked into the Doctor's ear. He closed the book and let it go. It flapped back up into the seething mêlée. He watched it until it was lost to sight amongst its fellows, and then looked down at Rose, eyes twinkling with no small amusement.

"I made a deal with the Librarian," he told her. "I help him rescue the books, and in return he'll go quietly."

"What have you got against him, anyway?" she asked, accusingly.

"Nothing," said the Doctor, but Rose thought that he was far too glib and, paraphrasing, said as much. "All right," he admitted, eventually. "It's just that he's..."

"What?" she prompted.

"Well," mumbled the Doctor, squirming, "it's just that he's ginger."

"Oh!" Rose, understanding at last, smirked. "And you're jealous?"

"A tad," said the Doctor, sourly. "Of course," he added, snorting indignantly, "the fact that it's currently raining in the TARDIS is an entirely separate issue."

It seemed to Rose that the throng above their heads was thinning out a little. She risked poking her head out from under the console and saw two grim, heavy books engaged in a fierce dogfight. Further up she could make out the shape of the Librarian, perched on a beam with the little dog tucked safely beneath his arm. He seemed, insofar as she could tell, to be perfectly at ease.

"So," she said, turning back to the Doctor and fishing inside his jacket, "what or _who_ is this?" She held up Exhibit A, namely the imprisoned lizard.

"That's the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork," said the Doctor. He must have observed the blank look on Rose's face, because he sighed and tried again. "In other words, he runs this city."

"A lizard," said Rose, quite evenly and without even bothering to add a question mark.

"Yeah, I thought you'd mention that," replied the Doctor, looking a trifle shifty. "He's a bit out of sorts at the moment. Something disagreed with him."

"'Something'?"

"A wizard."

"I see. And the dog?"

"His name's Wuffles. He's just a dog. He belongs to His Lordship."

"I see."

It dawned on them both that the last book had flapped past more than twenty seconds previously. The Doctor reacted first. He scooted out past her and stood up cautiously, ready to duck again at the slightest hint of aggressive literature.

It was only then that he clapped eyes on the Librarian, who was pressing switches on the console as if it were a pinball machine on an Extra Ball. The Doctor swelled with fury and circled around the central axis, eyes narrowing.

"Stop that!" he said, sharply. The Librarian half-turned, gave him a polite grin that nevertheless had impoliteness written all over it in very fine print, and continued jabbing at buttons with what looked suspiciously like merry abandon.

Rose pulled herself out from beneath the desk in time to see the Doctor slap one hand down on the framework of the console.

"For the last time," he growled, "will you _stop_ fiddling about with my TARDIS, you stupid monke_eeeohSH_-"


	6. Chapter 6

Sighing softly, Rose soaked a ball of cotton wool in witch-hazel and dabbed gingerly at a bruise on the Doctor's forehead.

"He didn't mean it," she said.

"Hmph."

"I'm sure he's very sorry," she added.

"Hmph."

They were sitting on the floor in a small clearing amongst perilously tottering towers of books. All was not quite silent; the books shifted against one another now and again, and in the distance Rose was sure she could hear the irritable snap of leather binding.

"Besides," she said, screwing the lid back on the bottle and setting it aside, "He didn't have it all his own way. I mean, when he was holding you upside down by your ankle and you head-butted him in the–"

"I was _aiming_ for his _knee!_" said the Doctor, as fast as a whip.

"And," she said, lifting one of his eyelids in a businesslike manner, "the way you got him in that half-nelson?"

"Yeah, that wasn't too shabby, was it?" said the Doctor, grinning blearily.

"No, it wasn't," she said, checking the other eye. "Just a shame he got out of it and bit you on the-"

"Yes. That's exactly where _he_ was aiming," said the Doctor, wincing at the memory. He blinked several times, and looked around.

"By the way," he asked her, "how come we're still in flight?"

Rose leaned back against Volumes 17-44 of '1001 Things a Wizard Can Do with a Dead Vole' and frowned.

"We're not," she said. "We landed a couple of minutes ago."

"Then why is the room still spinning?"

"I think that's just you," she told him.

"Oh." He clawed his way up the books and stood on legs that felt like two bendy straws. "So where are we?"

Rose studied him carefully for a second, wondering if she should wait until he was in a better mood. She bit her lip and elected to press on regardless.

"Well," she began, slowly, "first, he found _this_ in the library," she said, and held up a bright yellow volume entitled 'TARDISES for Dummies', "and then he said he had a quick side trip to make. Um," she finished. The Doctor's eyes bulged for a second, and then he groaned.

"No. Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm never going to get rid of him, am I?" he said, sagging. "What side trip, anyway?" He stopped, and sniffed at the air. "And, though I realise I may not want to know the answer to this, why can I smell smoke?"

"He mentioned something about a place called...Ephebe?" said Rose, uncertainly.

The Librarian chose that moment to reappear, subjecting them to a half-moon grin over the top of a rampart of books. He dumped a smoke-blackened sack on the floor and vanished as suddenly as he'd arrived. The Doctor looked at the sack, at Rose, at the ceiling, back at the sack, and then stalked off in pursuit of the ape.

Rose caught up with him as he was berating the Librarian.

"We had an agreement," he said, wagging a finger. "I didn't say anything about going to Ephebe. Did I?"

"Oook," said the Librarian, mildly, indicating with a small but meaningful gesture the sum total and entirety of his feelings on the subject of their agreement. He flexed his arms and snapped back several switches. The TARDIS rattled, and started to move.

"This is your last go, all right?" the Doctor warned him, picking up the finger-wagging where he'd left off.

"Doctor?" said Rose, eventually, not sure when she was going to get another chance to get a word in edgewise. He turned around, finger finally slowing down.

"Yes?" he said, looking distracted.

"Where's Ephebe? And what's in that sack over there?"

The Doctor nodded, then bent and rooted beneath the console again, this time pulling out a different, though equally foxed paperback. Rose saw that this one was called _Small Gods_.

"Page two hundred and sixteen," he told her. "The lazy sod," he went on, as she turned the pages. "He could have travelled through L-Space without the TARDIS, only it was apparently too far to walk. Hmph."

Rose finished reading. This time, she simply nodded grimly.

"Before we go any further," she said, "I think I ought to know. Is the Librarian in many of these books?"

"Oh, yes," said the Doctor, morosely. "Lots."

"Right," she replied, lips thinning alarmingly. "That does it."

She strode back to where the Librarian was still pushing buttons, oblivious to either of them, and grabbed him by one knurled ear as the Doctor stared at her with a mixture of trepidation, amazement and pure, undiluted awe.

"Where are you going?" she said, coldly. The ape swivelled his eyes to the left, not daring to turn his head for fear of having his facial symmetry irreversibly ruined.

"Oook oook?" he said, nervously.

"Too bleedin' right you are. And when are you going there?"

"Oook?" he said, in an even smaller voice.

"Correct. Now get on with it," she snapped, and released her death-grip on his ear. He rubbed the side of his head, briefly considered the idea of reprisal, then caught the look in Rose's eye and subsided meekly.

"We're going to the Tower of Art," she told the Doctor. "Is that right?"

"Yes," he said, exhaling gratefully, "it is! Thank you!"

Behind her, the Librarian peered at a readout and twisted a dial firmly. The TARDIS jolted, throwing Rose and the Doctor off balance, and landed with a thump. The Doctor was back on his feet within seconds, leaping for the door and hauling it back. Rose tried to see past him.

At that moment, a thick, greasy tentacle snaked in through the door and coiled around the Doctor's waist, dragging him out into the darkness. Rose heard a strangled scream and a number of short squelching noises, and was halfway across the floor when the Doctor dashed back inside, panting wildly. He wheeled around, slammed the door again and leaned on it heavily.

"You might want to let _me_ drive," he told the Librarian, ashen-faced. "We appear to be in the Dungeon Dimensions."

"Oook," said the Librarian, looking just as shocked himself, and backed away from the console. The Doctor took up station and laid his still-shaking hands on the switches. The TARDIS shuddered, and took off once more.

When they landed, Rose volunteered to check out their surroundings. They were still just as dark, but as she leaned out the door and looked up, she could see that they were inside a tower of some sort, with rough wooden steps set into the wall in a spiral pattern. There were small embrasure windows at intervals, but the light they allowed in was of very little assistance. The air above smelled of damp, and decay, and very slightly of raven guano.

"This is it," she said, nodding, and turned to go back inside.

She was just in time to duck as the books barrelled over her head once more.


	7. Chapter 7

The library was well ablaze by the time they reached the top of the Tower.

Rose leaned on the parapet, chin in her hand, watching sombrely as a pillar of flame punched through the glass dome and roared skyward, spitting sparks and coiling as it went.

"I'm sorry," she said, patting the Librarian's hand. "But the books are safe, and you'll get another library eventually."

"Oook," he said, sadly. She left him watching the conflagration and wandered over to the Doctor, who was running the sonic screwdriver over one of the weathered stones with his face twisted in concentration. She stood back and watched him for a while, until he sighed harshly and flicked the screwdriver off.

"What are you up to?" she asked, trying for cheerful in the face of his obvious irritation.

"I'm trying to find out what holds this thing up," he said, slotting the screwdriver into a pocket. "The laws of physics say that it shouldn't be possible to build a stone tower this high."

"No luck, I'm guessing?"

"No," he said, "Oh, it says in the books that it stays up by magic, but that's not an _answer_. Magic's just another word for science, and I'd like to know what makes this universe tick. Dragons and trolls and witches and impossible physics..." he waved his arms helplessly, "...it's all out of my reach."

It was the first time, since she'd met him, that Rose had seen the Doctor looking lost and bewildered. She clasped his shoulder and turned him around to face the burning library, and then reached down for his hand and squeezed it companionably.

"_This_ is what happens when magic falls into the wrong hands," she said, the fire sparkling in her eyes. "It doesn't look that different from _our_ science. Remember Blaidd Drwg? Think what would have happened if we hadn't stopped Blon."

"You do talk an awful lot of waffle sometimes, Rose Tyler," said the Doctor, but he smiled fondly, looked down at her and squeezed her hand in return. "So, what are you trying to say?"

Rose gaped for a second like a hyperventilating goldfish, and tried to work out what she was trying to say.

"I'm saying," she said, which was as good a start as any, "that you're looking for differences where there ain't any. Not really. From what I can tell, the people," she hesitated, and then nodded at the Librarian's back, "and apes of this universe have the same problems we do. Love, kids, taxes, death, work, you name it."

"What about the Dungeon Dimensions?" the Doctor asked her, although he was still smiling as he spoke. Rose flapped a hand.

"Great big slimy 'orrible grabbing things?" she said, dismissively. "You should have met my first boyfriend. At least it didn't try to stick its tentacle up your knickers, so count yourself lucky."

There was a long pause. Rose assumed the Doctor was lost in thought, but at length she realised that his hand, which she was still clasping, was vibrating. She looked down, then up along the length of his arm, and finally to his face. He was shaking with suppressed laughter.

She caught his eye, and the laugh finally burst out into the night, free and unfettered. Standing quite still, she watched him wipe his streaming eyes and compose himself, with some degree of difficulty.

"God, you're _brilliant_," he said, still hiccupping and giggling, and then bent and kissed her on the cheek. Rose jumped as his lips brushed her skin, and when he drew back she instinctively raised a hand to her face and held it there for a second.

"What was that for?" she said.

"What did I say about all these questions?" he chided, gently. "But if you must know, I did it because you deserve to be kissed. Simple as that."

Rose dropped her hand from her burning cheek, considered several possible futures, and then bounced up on tiptoe and returned the kiss. Beneath her mouth, the Doctor's skin was cool, slightly stubbly and extremely welcome.

"Okay," he said, after a deep and thoughtful pause. "What was_ that _for?"

"Questions?" she said, smugly, and turned away again.

"Oook," said a hopeful voice from somewhere in the region of her waist. Rose looked down, startled, into the broad smile of the Librarian. She hesitated, then leaned down and kissed him, too.

"Oook oook?" he said, smile widening into a bright, slightly disbelieving grin.

"Oh..." said Rose, "just _because_."

They all turned back towards the University as a tortured shriek marked the demise of the library. The walls folded like an origami figurine and lurched inward, the sudden inrush of cool night air stirring the flames to even greater heights. The collapse echoed out across the city, and Rose felt the stones quiver beneath her feet.

"It'll be back," she said, firmly, placing a hand on the Librarian's shoulder for a second. The ape nodded.

"We should be going," she told him, and nudged the Doctor. "Isn't there something you're forgetting?"

"No," he said, bewildered. "I gave him all the fruit in the TARDIS," he added. Rose nodded, remembering that it had taken them fifty-eight trips and the best part of an hour to unload it all.

"I meant your stowaway," she reminded him. The Doctor slapped a hand to his forehead, a tad over-dramatically, and pulled open his coat, rummaging around in an inside pocket.

"Sorry, sorry," he said, handing the jar to the Librarian. "Right old mess you'd be in if I swanned off with the Patrician, eh?"

The lizard was curled up at the bottom of the jar, apparently asleep. Only Rose was paying close enough attention to see it open its eyes a fraction and then wink at her.

The Librarian went back down to the TARDIS with them, pausing occasionally along the way to reassure particularly nervous books. Several snapped at him, but only half-heartedly, presumably on the principle that it is never wise to bite the hand that can give you a bloody good wallop if it wants to.

Rose and the Librarian were left outside the door while the Doctor disappeared inside on some mysterious errand. She stuck out a hand.

"It's been fun," she said, finding that - in spite of the chaos the ape had wreaked on the TARDIS as well as on what should have been a relatively simple diversion - she meant it. "I hope we can come back one day."

"Oook," said the Librarian, clasping her hand warmly.

The Doctor reappeared between them and held up a sack, still reeking of smoke.

"Don't go without these," he said, and then paused. His eyebrows dipped, and he hefted the sack once or twice. "Is it just me," he said, carefully, "or are these rather_ heavy_ scrolls?" He cast an inquiring glance at the Librarian, who appeared unable to meet his gaze. The Doctor ripped open the neck of the sack and peered inside.

"Now that's not on," he said, warningly. "You of all people should know there's rules about this sort of thing." With this, he stuck his arm inside and pulled out paperback after paperback, handing them to Rose one at a time. She read the titles, and let out a short laugh.

"Come on," she said. "Give him a break. Who wouldn't want to find how the story ends?"

"I'm not talking about preserving the integrity of the timeline," the Doctor told her. "I'm talking about him pinching _my_ Discworld books!"

He dumped the sack, now clean of all its contraband, into the Librarian's arms, took his books back from Rose, nodded at the ape, and stalked back inside the TARDIS. Rose smiled at the Librarian.

"You'll have to excuse him," she said. "He's had a very hard day."

"Oook oook?"

"Good point," she admitted. "Well...seeya round?"

Once inside, Rose closed the door behind her as gently as she could. She started up the ramp, but pulled up short as her foot kicked against something which skittered away from her. Bending, she retrieved it.

It was a book; presumably knocked down and left behind during the exodus. She turned it over several times, her lips moving, and then grinned hugely and held it up to show the Doctor.

"'Mister Motley's Monsters'!" she cried, waving it to and fro. "This is it! This is the book we were after!"

"Good stuff," said the Doctor without looking up, still concentrating on his work. "Can we get back to the beach now? You can start reading it."

Rose's hand, still clutching the book, fell to her side.

"Not just yet," she said, mostly to herself. "I've got something else to read first."


	8. Chapter 8

The weather was just as beautiful as it had been when they'd left, although considering that they'd apparently been gone for just thirteen seconds, it probably wasn't too surprising.

Rose reached behind her back, readjusted the cushion on the lounger, and then sank back onto it with a contented sigh. She pushed her sunglasses further up her nose and returned to her reading.

"What d'you think of it so far?" said a quiet voice from somewhere nearby.

"It's fun," she said, her lips curling. "Now, _shh_. This is a good part."

"Which part's that?" asked the Doctor, in the tones of a man anticipating a slapping.

"Well, Rincewind's just found out about the insurance policy and he's doing his nut. Now," she said, lowering the book just enough so that she could frown at him over the top, "stop bothering me and find something else to do." She winked at him to indicate that there were no hard feelings, but to little avail.

The Doctor glanced around them, looking for something to occupy his time. He stared at the shining surf, the white sand speckled with jewelled shells, the thundering cobalt sky, the dancing palms. The boundless beauty of nature's time and tide, in all its awesome splendour.

"I'm bored," he said.


End file.
